W.H. unveils details of education plan

8/22/13 7:57 AM EDT

President Barack Obama begins a speaking tour in New York on Thursday to push his plan to make college more affordable at a university in Buffalo, N.Y., and a high school in Syracuse, N.Y.

The plan the president will propose focuses on tying funds for schools to performance, spurring innovation and competition and keeping student debt affordable, according to a fact sheet released by the White House on Thursday.

Obama will propose tying federal aid to universities to performance of students and affordability, as opposed to the number that enroll. To do this, the Department of Education will develop a rating system for college value by 2015, and that will be used to make aid decisions by 2018. He also will push a “Race to the Top” for states to reward better higher education with lower costs, the White House said.

The president will also propose a $260 million fund to spur schools to innovate, including with technology, and the administration will issue “regulatory waivers” to schools for experimentation.

To address student debt, the president will continue to push a plan to allow borrowers to cap their student loan payments at 10 percent of their monthly income, and the Department of Education will start contacting borrowers who are behind on payments or at risk this fall to help them understand the options they have.

“[Obama] wants us over time, we’ll go out and travel the country, he and I, and listen, but over time to start to rank universities and see who is doing a good job of making sure young people have a chance to go to school, that they are actually graduating … and then making sure at the back end, that they’re not burdened with debt,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Thursday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”